


Somebody Else

by sarahxxxlovey



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Feelings, Jealous Lydia Martin, Jealousy, Lydia Martin Loves Stiles Stilinski, Lydia-centric, Mentioned Scott McCall, Mentioned Stiles Stilinski/Malia Tate, Not anti Malia, Pining, Pining Lydia Martin, Season 5A, Stydia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 01:03:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14153283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahxxxlovey/pseuds/sarahxxxlovey
Summary: "But then she sees Stiles and Malia holding hands or in the library together or the couples’ eyes just meet for a moment too long and her throat chokes in an emotion that she’s never experienced. She starts to understand why there are about two million songs written about heartbreak, about this fullness at the back of her throat and the prickling in her eyes and how she can’t help the feelings when they come."





	Somebody Else

She’s been trying to ignore it. She tries every day to ignore it, the way that her body reacts and where her thoughts go and how she just can’t seem to shake the overwhelming feelings. The cold sweat at the back of her neck and how nothing quite seems right even when it’s been a long time since the last time she felt the real urge to scream.

Some days are easier than others. Some days she goes all day without that sinking feeling in her stomach and others it feels like she might break apart when it’s brought back to her attention and all over again she feels shame and regret and remorse. She was torn between wanting to make all the memories going away and the thought of being without him even more than she is now, as he belongs to someone else.

It’s easy when she’s buried in school work or they have a mystery to solve or someone is being crazy and she has distraction, distraction, distraction to keep her mind off of it. 

But then she sees Stiles and Malia holding hands or in the library together or the couples’ eyes just meet for a moment too long and her throat chokes in an emotion that she’s never experienced. She starts to understand why there are about two million songs written about heartbreak, about this fullness at the back of her throat and the prickling in her eyes and how she can’t help the feelings when they come. 

Sometimes she leaves class and just sits in the hall, desperately wishing that she could stop feeling like this. She’d give anything to stop feeling like this.

She hears Allison’s voice echoing in her head as she drive’s and the memory feels like a twist of the knife.

“Remember what it feels like,” Allison urges.

And Lydia can’t help it because Allison’s voice is so strong in her memories that it feels like a command. She thinks of Stiles, the way that his lips feel against hers and how her heart speeds up when he looks at her and how his words are so earnest and sweet and she threw it away and how it feels like she can’t breathe, can’t think straight when she knows he isn’t safe. 

They’re standing in the hall talking with Scott after class and Stiles pulls his phone out of the pocket of his blue jeans and a stupid smile crosses over his face and he bites his lip and tries to hide it.

He says he has to go and gives Scott a pat on the back as he runs to his Jeep in the parking lot with an excited hop. 

She can read him like she never thought she’d be able to and she can practically hear how giddy he is with love, his girlfriend texting him something funny or sweet or suggestive. How nice it must feel to be wanted and happy and to have a new teenage romance. His first girlfriend, she realizes with a start.

“All of those times in school when you see him standing down the hall, and you can’t breathe until you're with him,” Allison says from the driver’s seat of the car and Lydia’s heart aches at the thought of her best friend.

She hates how right Allison and she hates how her dead friend has to be right  _ now.  _ She knows what it feels like now, the staring at the clock and knowing that he’s waiting on the other side.

But Malia and Stiles are still dating and they walk in to school together sometimes and he smiles a smile that used to be directed at her and so Lydia still throws herself into the things that she knows, textbooks and tests and conspiracy theories and connections, trying to stifle the sensations that come up and convincing herself that she isn’t jealous and heartbroken and confused and betrayed. 

But it still hurts. It hurts more than she can take sometimes.

She reads another article about Fermat’s Last Theorem and its notability in historical mathematics and  fantasies about winning a Field’s Medal but the dull thud of her heart in her chest won’t stop. The fantasies hurt too because when she used to be standing alone, now Stiles is cheering loudly, loudest, from the crowd and he kisses her fully when she walks down from the stage.

She wants him to be happy, like he is in her memories from before everything changed. Worry-free and happy. 

Malia makes him happy and it kills her but it also makes it all okay for a few moments and it dulls the ache a little bit. Malia says that she’d never leave him and she proves that he’s important and that she’d do anything to make sure that he was safe. It comforts Lydia, to know that Stiles is cared about in that way and she tries not to think of all the other ways that Malia cares for him.

She tries not to want him and tries not to think about how she was his anchor once or how they used to have an unexplainable connection. She tries not to think about the fact that he’s out there with someone else, that the connection that was once there is someone else’s now. She can see him kissing her on the backs of her eyelids when she closes her eyes. She wishes she could be mad at him, angry for what felt like betrayal and abandonment, but all she can feel is regret. She tries to say that she doesn’t want him but she’s picturing him with somebody else and it hurts.

Their relationship changed at some point. It was barely acquaintance for years and then and now he’s her best friend and it feels all wrong. He used to be like a puppy dog, hanging onto her every word, obsessively trying to impress her. 

He had always noticed the little things about her. He knew she was smart before anyone else did and he noticed her drawings and he noticed every detail about her, her height and her exact hair color.

She thought it was a lie at first, when he and Malia first started dating. The back of her mind always told her that he’d be there in the end, but she had waited too long and didn’t realize what she had and now it’s too late and he’s with somebody else now.

He hasn’t changed, not really. But the interactions are different. He hugs her without hesitation and without buildup and it’s friendly and like everything Stiles-related, it makes her stomach ache with lost opportunity.

He moved on. She waited too long and someone else realized how amazing he is. How he’s caring and smart and funny and how his brain works like others don’t. How cute his nose is and how his eyes change drastically depending on the light. 

He found someone that won’t make him wait and won’t lead him on and doesn’t play games.

She tries to tell herself that she doesn’t want him but she still hates the thought of him with somebody else.

**Author's Note:**

> Stydia has gripped my heart and won't let go.
> 
> Also this is based off The 1975 song "Somebody Else." Never been super into them but love this song.


End file.
